THE CITY TOUR, A DAY OF NONSTOP ETHNIC EATS

On our third day in L.A., I needed to visit my optometrist, who's located in Monterey Park, about 30 minutes east of the Westside. My mom also wanted to give Tom a city tour, since it was his first time in LA and apparently I wasn't doing a good enough job. (I like to stick on the Westside) So we packed into the car early and headed out. After I'd gotten my eyes checked, it was time for some breakfast and I wanted to stock up on some ingredients. For those of you unfamiliar with LA geography, Monterey Park is where a ton of Taiwanese, Chinese and Asian people live. For people who've always wondered how there can be people living in the U.S. who don't speak English, it's cause they've never left their little world and visited an ethnic community. Think Flushing in Queens, Jackson Heights in the Bronx or in this case, Monterey Park. You don't need to know English to function in this world, and actually, if you don't know Chinese, you'll have a much harder time.

Our first stop was at a giant herbal grocery store. My mom wanted to pick up some random ingredients, and I got some dried shrimp, scallops and shitake mushrooms. I used to love going into these places as a kid, cause they had all kinds of crazy ingredients. Like sharks fins, dried seahorses and turtles. The Chinese have a long history of Oriental medicine, so apparently, each one of these ingredients has it's own uses. The just used to freak me out as a kid. Anywhere, here's a pic of a bin of an assortment of dried sea cucumbers.And here's a pic of the ginseng section, which was huge. They have ginseng in all different forms and different grades.
Our next stop was for some traditional Taiwanese breakfast (what I call Taiwanese dim sum when I'm in Boston). Here's a pic of a rack of freshly steamed buns. In this area of LA, you can count the number of non-Asians that you find on one hand. This place had no English in menu.

Here's the guy standing in front a pan of freshly fried dough. Normally, I order one of these with my soy milk, but I wasn't in the mood that day. I ordered Tom beef in a sesame pocket, which I was a little disappointed in cause the beef looked dry and Tom confirmed it. Here's my bowl of hot soy milk, and a tea egg on the side. The soy milk was yummy as always.
And lastly, here's my scallion pancake. I was not thrilled with this pancake. They deep fried it rather than panfried it, so though it was crispy, it was completely drenched in oil and not very appetizing at all.Continuing on our city tour, we drove west to downtown LA where we visited Olvera St. I actually hadn't been here in at least 10 years. It's a really historic part of LA, one of the oldest streets in the city, which had a high concentration of Mexicans. Now there are a bunch of kitschy shops and there's a mission, just very California. I wasn't so interested in the knick knacks, but I was interested in a sign that said "Mr. Churro". Of course, I had to get a Mexican churro, which was being fried as I entered. We had a wait a few minutes for it to finish cooking, and then it was dusted with cinnamon and sugar and served. I ate it as we walked along, but I got stuffed pretty soon and handed it over to Tom. It was so yummy and warm, though.We got back in the car and continued to drive West and ended up Hollywood where we saw the walk of fame, and Tom got a cream puff and cheesecake stick from Beard Papa's. Apparently, Beard Papa is a recent phenomenon in LA, though we've had it on the east coast for a few years now. But it's amazing how that quality differs from one store to the next. The one I had in LA was actually quite good, but the ones at Fanuiel Hall suck.

After driving back to the Westside, it was time for lunch. I was stuffed full, and asked that we go somewhere where I could just get a salad or tofu. My mom decided to take us to Torafuku, which is a Japanese restaurant located right next to the Westside Pavillion. Apparently they are famous for their rice, called Kamado rice that's cooked in a special way. And they have homemade tofu. They have these huge rice pots located at the front of the restaurant where they cook rice in an old fashioned style. I took a pic, but I can't find it right now.

The restaurant was full when we arrived, even though it was a pretty big space, (apparently there was a private party in the back) so we snagged the last available table. The place was full of Japanese people, and I've always told you guys to eat where the natives eat. Here's a pic of the sushi bar. We were each served a little saladAnd then I got this little bamboo pot of freshly made tofu served with some ground ginger and soy sauce. It really didn't taste that different from normal tofu, but the texture was definitely silkier. It was expensive, though. $7 for this little guy.A lot of their stuff is made in house. Like the rice seasoning shown here. (aka Furikake, you can buy it in bottles at Japanese markets and use it on rice).Tom got this lunch set, which I think he enjoyed.My mom and I shared the chef's choice bento box. Even though I was stuffed full before I got to the restaurant, I still managed to eat half of it AND a whole bowl of rice! I was amazed at myself, I didn't know where I was putting it all. But the rice was quite tasty. Again, not so much for the flavor, but the texture. It just seemed extra springy.Ok, after this, I still continued to snack and eat dinner. But at places I've talked about. So I'll finish this post with a great pic of the Ugly Dolls exhibit at the Giant Robot 2 store in West LA. Isn't it great? Have you ever seen so many Ugly Dolls? (and there were Ugly Doll pinatas, too). AHH, so much yummy eating in one day, and it was only our 3rd day in LA!

NOUVELLE VIETNAMESE IN BEVERLY HILLS

Tom and I just got back from a week in LA. Before I left, people kept asking me if I was excited to go home and I responded of course! I'm gonna eat so well! And that's exactly what we did. For 6 full days. My tummy is still full and kinda round after our marathon dining. I'm going to the gym tomorrow. And of course, I brought stuff back, like a box full of Satsuma Tangerines. I've already eaten two this morning. I visited some of my favorite spots, but I wrote all about those the last time I went home, so the next few posts will be about the new places that I went to. Every time I go home, my mommy has new places for me to try (I think Tom learned where I got a lot of my eccentricities and habits on this trip, like my messiness, love of food and travel), so we definitely tried a few good spots, which was important, cause we didn't have time to have a bad meal.

On our first night in LA, we had dinner with my family and a couple of old family friends. My mom told us we were going to have Vietnamese food, so I expected the typical pho and bun, but maybe a little nicer. But when she told me to change into nicer clothes before we left for dinner, my suspicions were aroused. For me, there are just certain food that don't need to be dressed up and made fancy. In fact, when this is done, the food is often just not as good as the neighborhood hole in the wall you love to go to. That includes, Chinese, Mexican, Indian, Thai and of course, Vietnamese food. But like many of you seek restaurant recommendations from me, I shouldn't doubt my mom's tastes either.

When we drove up to the restaurant, Michelia, in Beverly Hills, I noticed that it's awning said "Nouvelle Vietnamese", which aroused my suspicions even more. And when we entered the restaurant, the dining room was really nicely decorated, thought not too large. Since my mom had been here a few times, she new the chef/owner, who is Chinese, but grew up in Vietnam. She spoke perfect Mandarin. And so, my parents just let her set the menu, so I'm not positive about everything we ate, though I'll try to reconstruct it from the menu online.

We started with several appetizers. Here are the Saigon rolls: A pair of soft rice wraps rolled with jicama, cucumber, mixed greens, and shrimps that are sautéed with lime leaves, chili, and ginger. These were definitely better than the ones you typically get at Vietnamese restaurants, with the higher quality ingredients and the mesclun mix instead of the typical iceberg lettuce. Actually, as I'm looking at the menu and descriptions, I ' m realizing is very reasonably priced. If it were in Boston, I'd definitely go back. But I digress. Next, we had some shumai: Innovative steamed dumplings stuffed with shrimp, chicken & crab, topped with masago. These were also really well made, and I'm breathing a sigh of relief right now. Since we never saw a menu, I didn't know if there was pork in this, though Tom and my sisters assured me there wasn't after they'd tried it. So I ate one and it was good. Not like the frozen ones they like serving all around Boston.Everyone else also had some beef appetizer that I didn't photograph cause I didn't eat it. But that was ok, cause we had plenty more food to go. Our next dish was something dish I can't find on the menu. Anyway, it involved prawns sauteed with veggies in some sauce and served in a crispy basket. This was also really good, cause the prawns were large and tender and I enjoyed tearing at the fried basket, which was just like fried wonton wrappers. And our next dish was veggies sauteed with tofu. It was simple, but nice to have since it broke up all the meat that we'd been eating.
Ok, by this time, I was stuffed. But we're talking about my parents here. They always order too much. Our next dish was probably my favorite one. It's a Crispy Sole: Sole fish filet breaded with panko, golden fried, topped with the chef’s original spicy French-style dressing. It seems really simple, but the fish was cooked well; still moist and tender on the interior, but crunchy on the exterior without being too greasy. And finally we finished the dinner with some pan fried noodles with chicken and veggies. Totally unnecessary, but still tasty. I think this was the first, and certainly not last time, in our trip that Tom would hear me say "I'm so full I'm gonna explode." We were handed dessert menus, but that would've been ridiculous. Also, the desserts were just ones bought from Bindi, nothing homemade, so not really worth ordering. So definitely a very enjoyable dinner, and for Katie, my only LA reader, check this place out, cause you'd definitely like it. And with so much seafood, Dustin would like it, too.

THE NEW BLOGGER AND BRUNCH AT LINEAGE

Well everyone, I'm back from LA. I apologize for not posting in weeks, but there was the holiday season and then a week of vacation at home! I'm using the new blogger beta, which Google has finally let everyone use. (Tom's has been using it for at least 2 months now). I'm not sure if it's really all that different. They still won't let you load multiple pictures at once and the upload isn't any speedier. But we'll see as time goes by and I use more of the features.

So I thought I'd start of the New Year with a place I went last year, which was brunch at Lineage. Lineage is one of my favorite places to eat in Boston. It's owned by really nice people, they have a lovely staff and good food. But since I can't afford to go very often, I'd only had dinner there once. This problem was remedied by a very generous gift from Katie. She'd given me a gift certificate to Lineage right before she left for LA, and since it was my first day off since Thanksgiving, I felt it was the perfect time to use it for a Sunday Brunch. I called up Leah and she, Tom and I headed off to Lineage.

The place was pretty empty when we arrive, and it never really filled up. I don't think they advertise their Sunday brunch very well, cause as all us Bostonians know, if we'd tried going to Zaftigs, we'd be in line for at least an hour before we could even catch a glimpse of a table.

While we waited for Leah to arrive, we ordered a bread plate and coffee. The bread plate had some very well made scones that were soft and not dry at all. There was also banana bread and a muffin. Next, we all placed our orders. I'd considered ordering the lobster omelette, but Leah ended up getting it, and we decided to share our dishes. I ordered the Poached eggs with smoked salmon. Here's Leah's lobster omelette.
I think we both found it pretty tasty. A good amount of yummy fresh lobster meat. And here are my poached eggs: This dish ended up being a bit too heavy for me. All that Hollandaise sauce. And the smoked salmon was much more pungent in flavor that I had expected. I liked the potatoes, though. And lastly, Tom ordered some cod cheek hash.
I tried a bit of it, and I liked the cod cheeks, but Tom didn't particularly like this dish. I think he expected something with fewer veggies, and he didn't like the choice of veggies that they did end up using in the hash. (especially the celery root). I ended up giving him half my breakfast. Overall, I don't think Lineage has the best brunch. Especially the breakfast, you're just looking for some comfort food, that you could realistically make at home, but you're probably too lazy to do it. The brunch at Lineage was just a bit too fancy. But I'll return in the future for some dinner. (Maybe when Katie and Dustin visit Boston in April).

A CRAB DINNER (WARNING FOR KATIE! AVOID THIS POST)


Ok, for you sensitive types (Katie) just stop reading now. And avoid the accompaning pictures. The rest of you can continue reading about my first foray into cooking crab. I've recently decided to use my Everyday Chinese cookbook more and I've also wanted to integrate more seafood into my diet. So a few Sundays ago we went off to buy some live crabs at the Super 88; I wanted to try out a recipe for the traditional ginger scallion crab.

So if you've been to 88, you're familiar with their seafood area, with its variety of live seafood and recently deceased seafood prepared to your liking. Tom and I decided to get stone crabs, which were much much cheaper than the larger Dungeness crabs that I'm more familiar with. Since the stone crabs were smaller in size, we decided to get 2 each, for a total of four crabs. The seafood guy fished them out of the tank and put them into a plastic bag for us, and at least 3 of them looked pretty lively. (I had my doubts about one, but turns out it might have been sleeping, or on it's last legs. haha.).

We quickly took the crabs home and stuck them in the fridge. Tom said this would put them "asleep" or at least make them more sluggish so they were less likely to put up a fight when we boiled them. I then went about boiling water and preparing the ingredients for my dish. The ingredients were actually pretty simple, it was the just the process of cooking, cutting apart, frying and recooking the crabs that was so time consuming and ultimately very messy.

Here I am pouring out some cornstarch, which would be used later
and here are the crabs in the plastic bag
I wanted to wash the crabs since the tank water at 88 didn't look so freshUnfortunately, I turned on the hot water by mistake, and this woke the crabs up. Here's one close up.Ok, so I'll admit, I couldn't put the crabs into the boiling water. They were kinda thrashing around and that scared me, so I made Tom do it. No, there was no crying or screaming or clawing from the crabs once they hit the water. We just cooked them until they were reddish. Then came the messy part. I had to cut apart all the crabs so I could dip them in cornstarch and fry them. However, stone crabs have really really thick shells. So I stood there for quite some time just hacking these guys apart.After I completed that task, it was into a dredging of corn starch, and off to hot oil to fry for one minute.The last step was to stir fry the remaining ingredients together- ginger, garlic, green onions, and a sauce involving soy sauce and more corn starch. At this point, I wish I'd had a large wok, it would've made everything much easier, but my sisters are getting me one for Xmas. Here's the finished dish, along with a side of stir fried bok choy.
The verdict? After making this, I realized that it really isn't too hard. And I think it tasted pretty much right on with what I've had in Chinese restaurants. What I was disappointed about was the stone crabs. Those thick shells made it really difficult to eat, and the small size meant that the extra effort didn't yield much meat. In the future, I'll go for the Dungeness. Meanwhile, Tom was not a big fan of this dish. He's more accustomed to his mom's spicy chili crab, so maybe one day he'll make that for me to try.

THANKSGIVING WEEKEND POST, NEW YORK

I'm a bad bad blogger, cause I didn't take a single pic of anything I ate on Thanksgiving Day. I guess it's hard when there are so many people around. I didn't event take out my camera during the actual dinner. Ah well. On Thursday morning we had dim sum at Joy Tsin Lau with my aunt and uncle. This is the same place where they'd take me during college, and despite the fact that we got a cramped table at the back of the restaurant, in a very warm spot, the food was still great and I enjoyed it a lot.

Of course, we were back on the road that afternoon, heading up to Staten Island for Thanksgiving dinner with Tom's family. It ended up taking us 3 hours to get to NY (it would normally take 1.5 hours) and when we finally arrived at his house, neither of us was very hungry. (Remember, the more time you spend in a car, the less hungry you are). There was a ton of food there, Tom's brother, Greg, had made a turkey, but there was also a lot of Korean dishes that Tom's family had prepared. It was sad that I wasn't hungrier so that I could eat more, but I was also kinda happy that I walked away from Thanksgiving without being painfully full. It made watching Grey's Anatomy that night much more enjoyable.

Our last meal in NY was at the Unicorn Diner in Staten Island for breakfast the next morning. (Did I mention that this was my first trip to Staten Island?) It was one of those quirky old places, with booths and weird decor. But the also had a huge flat screen tv. Here's a shot of the interior.I ended up ordering waffles and a side of home fries. Tom ended up getting waffles, but he also got pork products in 3 different ways (sausage, bacon and ham). This is the same person who says I make him fat. At any rate, here's my waffle, which was very yummy and well cooked.And here's my side of homefries. It was massive, but it had lots of crispy parts, just they way I like it. This meal was much better than the one we'd had at Denny's a few days earlier, and was also better than the meal I'd had at Bubby's. So if you ever happen to be on Victory Blvd. in Staten Island, definitely drop by this place. And here's a final pic of Tom. He won't be seeing it for a few days since he's at home, sick, so enjoy it before he makes me take it down.All in all, it was a good Thanksgiving. It was very tiring with all the driving, though, it was great to be back home just to get some rest.

THANKSGIVING WEEKEND POST, PHILADELPHIA

This Thanksgiving, Tom and I decided to go down to Philadelphia and New York. We spent 15 hours in a car over 3 days, and have now decided to spend the next Thanksgiving in Boston. However, I was glad to get back to Philly. I hadn't been there in some time and it really is a great town. So early Wednesday morning, we picked up Leah (who was going to her brother's place in Philly for Thanksgiving) and we headed down. Luckily, we didn't hit much traffic. Unluckily, we got a bit off track and ended up on a one hour detour. But we still made it into the city in about 7 hours, which was pretty damn good for the day before Thanksgiving.

Every time I go back to Philly, I drop by Petit 4 Pastry Studio. It's the place where I got my start in the food biz. I was really lucky to have a boss like Joe who gave me a chance and taught me so much about pastry and the industry. Unfortunately, I was looking up Petit 4 on Chowhound right before we left and found out that it had closed in September. I wasn't overly surprised, it's such a hard industry, and they were around for 6 years, but I was heartbroken. I still am, really, cause that shop was one of my favorite places in the world, and it's not there anymore. I made Tom drive by it, just so I could see with my own eyes that it wasn't there anymore, and sure enough, it is now an ice cream store. Sigh.

So our first stop was the Reading Terminal Market. I used to come here in college to do some of my shopping. Basically, it's an indoor market created from an old train station. There are lots of booths where you can get food and other supplies. Here's a pic of a cheese vendor.And here's another pic of Leah buying some bread and pies.I was really looking foward to chowing down at the market, but the thing about sitting in a car is that you don't burn calories while sitting. So I wasn't hungry, and neither was Leah. We wandered around the market for a bit and eventually took a seat, waiting for the arrival of my friend, Sugata. In the meantime, I had a slice of Leah's cheese bread.It was pretty good, though kinda dry. I could see it being wonderful toasted with some butter, or as part of a grilled cheese sandwich.

When my buddy Sug finally arrived, we headed out to Capogiro, which I've written about before, but is the only place I've found in the U.S. where you can get Italian quality gelato. I'd only been here once before, so I actually walked by it, but good thing Tom and Leah noticed. Here's a pic of their case (Yes, that is avocado flavored gelato in the middle)And here's my dish of pomegranete and chocolate gelato. We each got a medium size dish (and this place is freaking expensive, but worth it). And it wasn't as sublime as the first time I'd had it, maybe it was the flavors I picked? But it was still the best gelato I've had in the U.S.After a trip to the Naked Chocolate Cafe, we dropped Leah off at the train station so she could head over to meet her brother, and Tom and I headed back to Sug's place. At Sug's suggestion, we decided to eat at Mama Palma's that evening. The thing about Philly is that it really is so small and accessible that I could visit all these places I'd gone to in college. Mama Palma's was actually located on the same block as the apartment I lived in my senior year of college. I used to order out from there, but had never actually eaten inside the restaurant.The place wasn't crowded, but it did have several tables of families with their screaming children in tow. Clearly, it's a "family friendly" establishment, though not so friendly for the single diners who just want to have a quiet dinner. I'm looking online now and can't find a menu for the place, but we ordered two medium size pizzas to share.

The first is a peking duck pizza.It reminded me a lot of the CPK peking duck pizza, though not as well made. The duck on this one was pretty overcooked, but it was still tasty.

At Sug's suggestion, we also ordered a pizza with marscapone and pistachios (they were whole) . I ended up liking this pizza more than the duck one, so if you're ever in Philly, check it out.It would've been nice if we'd had more energy to go out that night, but we were all exhausted. I guess that's what happens when you get older. I hope to spend a little more time in Philly during my next visit, though, and then we can get Tom his cheesesteak from Geno's.

NEW YORK, DAY 3:

Ok, so after a long delay, I'm back to blogging. Sorry, it's the holiday season people. I'm busy. (sort of) At any rate, on our last day in New York, we met up with family at Bubby's in Tribeca. Now I'd heard of Bubby's before. It's a famous for it's brunch, for the long lines and for the no reservation policy. We were supposed to meet at 11, but Tom and I get there nearly 30 minutes early, arriving at about 10:30. This turned out to be a good thing since we were able to put our names in for a table. The not so great thing was that it was cold and sprinkly, though not yet raining. I was also getting over a cold that weekend, so I was not thrilled to be standing outside in the cold.

Here's a pic of the exterior of the placeAnd another shot of people waiting outside. The were a good number of using standing there, just waiting to get in. At 11, Tom's brother and brother's fiancee arrived and it was another 20 minutes before my cousin, Jeany arrived. Did I mention that you have to have your whole party present to get a table? At any rate, we were finally allowed in at 11:30, where I promptly began to defrost.

So Bubby's is going for that down home southern feeling. They serve you biscuits when you sit down, and they were pretty good. But it's so crowded that the waiters are always just trying to keep up, and service is pretty spotty.I ended up ordering the sourdough pancakes with turkey sausage and eggs. And I gotta say, I wasn't thrilled. I'd never had sourdough pancakes before, and I was expecting them to have a slight tanginess, but not as much as were in these. Plus the sausage and eggs were kinda cold by the time they arrived to our table. I think my cousin summed it up pretty well, Bubby's is pretty good, but definitely not worth the wait. So next time I'm in NY, I'd rather visit Congee Village or another local place, where I'll get seated faster and have better food.

NEW YORK, DAY 2: CITY BAKERY AND PER SE

Do you ever have those days where it feels like the longest day ever? And you look at the clock and realize that you still have 4.5 hours left at work. So why not blog? Especially before I forget all the food that we had at Per Se last Saturday night.

But first, let me start with a review of City Bakery, since I actually took pictures of that meal, and I know that you're all really here to look at pictures of food. We had finished up at the Chocolate Show and were pretty hungry. Luckily, City Bakery was just a block down, so we headed there to fill our tummies and grab a quick lunch. We we entered, the place was already packed, and they were just switching food over from breakfast to lunch, so luckily, we got a nice pick of food just fresh out of the kitchen. We all wanted to be pretty moderate with our lunch, knowing that we had that big dinner at Per Se coming up in a few hours. After picking up our food and paying (it's cafeteria style at City Bakery) we headed to the second floor where we were able to snag a table. So here's what I got:
What you're looking at are two little sandwiches and a bowl of miso mushroom soup. The sandwiches were small and at $3/ea, they weren't cheap. But all was forgiven due to the high quality of the ingredients. I had a smoked salmon and avocado sandwich, and they were super generous with the avocado and a gruyere sandwich (my favorite cheese!). The miso mushroom soup didn't really taste like it had any miso, but it was still packed with mushrooms and pretty tasty.

Tom got a plate of mixed veggies and some smoked tofu. He definitely enjoyed his roasted brussel sprouts and the tofu.And Juliet just got a plate of roasted veggies. Her favorites were also the brussel sprouts and thai eggplant.
We didn't grab any of the famed City Bakery pastries, cause like I said, we were trying to save our tummies for dinner, but they certainly looked great.

After an afternoon of running errands and visiting a couple of chocolate shops (Max Brenner is huge, but was also packed) we got ready to go to dinner. As I had told you in a previous post, when I made my reservations at Per Se, we didn't have much choice about the time. We were given a choice of 6:15 or 9:15, and I chose 6:15 since I didn't want to be eating dinner until midnight.

Here's a pic a got when we arrived at the Time Warner Center, right outside the doors of Per Se. And yes, this is your last picture today.So when you enter Per Se, they have a huge set of fake doors. To the left and right of those doors, there are actually automatic glass doors. When we entered, the entry way was empty, save for the hostess stand, where we were greeted by two nice ladies who took our coats. Behind the hostess stand was a long entryway/lounge area where you could sit and have cocktails while waiting for your reservation or for the rest of your party to arrive. Since Sue Min was running a bit late, we decided to have a seat in the dining room at our table to wait for her.

We were lead into a dining room with very high ceilings and huge windows that faced out onto Central Park and Columbus Circle. Unfortunately, we were seated at a table towards the back, so we couldn't look out the windows. Juliet and I also quickly noticed how cold it was inside the restaurant, and I regretted not bringing a shawl or something to drape over my shoulders. All the tables at the restaurant are pretty widely spaced out, so conversation from other tables won't interfere with your dinner. And of course, as I explained in a previous post, it was very dimly lit inside, so I quickly realized that it wouldn't be possible to take any photos.

So at Per Se, you get to choose from 3 different set menus, every one costs the same, $210. The first has 7 courses, the Chef's tasting has nine courses and there's also a vegetarian menu with 7 courses. If had heard that the portions on the Chef's tasting were smaller than the 7 course menu, but this is absolutely not true. If you can get the Chef's tasting, go for it. Prior to seeing the menu, I had already decided that I was going to get the chef's tasting, but after scanning that night's offering, I also realized that I wouldn't eat about 2/3 of the items on the menu (no oysters, beef, pork, etc etc for me). So I decided that the best thing for me was to go with the 7 course menu. Everyone else at the table got the 9 course. Our waiter was super nice. He took our orders without writing them down, and was very accomadating with our requests to change certain items, but Juliet and Sue Min had so many different requests in changing their set menus, that he had forgotten a number of changes and had to return to clarify it.

Just like at Enoteca the night before, it's really the small touches that make the difference with service. Our water glasses were constantly refilled, without our asking or even noticing. We had one waiter, but several different servers. Actually, I think there were enough servers on the floor to match the number of diners. And with every single course, they explained to us what we were having. Ok, so I'm going to have a hard enough time remembering what I had, so I'll try to reconstruct that to the best of my ability and throw in what I remember from the Chef's tasting menu. I do know that the rest of the table started with the oysters and pearls, which is a famous Keller dish. It was served in a little pot, with two perfectly round oysters set in caviar and tapioca (which mimicked the texture of caviar) and eaten with tiny spoons made of mother of pearl. Everyone at the table loved it. Meanwhile, I started with a not as spectacular dish, a shrimp tempura type thing, which was well prepared, but nothing exciting.

However, my next dish was my favorite thing of the night, and I can still recall it to this moment. I think I'll remember it for quite sometime. It was a chestnut agnolotti, which seems so simple, but was so good. It was basically a homemade pasta with a chestnut filling, but the filling was amazing. So creamy and flavorful, and it just burst when you bit into it. Ahhhhhhh, yummy. I would've gladly eaten a plate of just that. The second course for the Chef's tasting was supposed to be some pineapple and ham thing. Juliet ordered it at the suggestion of our waiter, but she didn't love it. Sue min got the same dish I had gotten and Tom splurged and got the $30 fois gras supplement. You may have heard of Thomas Keller's famous fois gras torchon, the Amateur Gourmet wrote about it recently and it takes like 4 days to make. That's what Tom got. It was a pretty large serving and it was served with freshly toasted brioche. The cool thing was that when Tom was halfway through is brioche, they brought him out a new, fresh toasted slice cause the previous slice had gotten cold. (He didn't ask for this, they just did it)

Meanwhile, we were also given our choice of freshly baked bread, and that was served with the famous butter that Thomas Keller gets. The unsalted butter came from CA, the salted butter (which I've read about) came from some dairy farmer in the Northeast. I can't remember her name, but the butter was fantastic. I think I sat out the third course, while the rest of the table had fish. Well, Juliet had squab, but was unhappy when I told her the squab was related to pigeon. That ruined it for her, but I was in love with the little salad that was served with the fish. Again, I don't remember what it was, but it was amazing. Another high point of the meal for me.

There was a pause in the meal as we were each served a little roll of bread, that is baked fresh for each table. I slathered mine with butter and gobbled it down. I think I also sat out the next course, while the rest of the table had lobster. The lobster was very sweet, but certainly not anything better than the fresh lobster we got in Maine during the summer.

And the meal continued. I got my fish course, which was allright, not my favorite thing, while the rest of the table had lamb? I think that was it. At this point, I was starting to figure out why someone would order the vegetarian menu, since everything I loved so far didn't involve meat. Oh wait, now I remember, the guys on the 9 course also got a chicken cooked sous vide, which was also something I was excited about. Sue min wasn't overly excited about chicken, so she gave me most of hers, and to be honest, it wasn't anything spectacular. It was juicy and tender, but not all that flavorful.

Moving on, I got my duck course, that was served with a piece of seared fois gras (I gave that to Sue Min and Juliet to split, the actually liked it more than the torchon). I think i've lost count at this point as to which course we're on. We filled in the holes with more bread. And we were quite full at this point, but the food kept coming. Actually, I wasn't as full as the 9 course people, but I think that was a good thing. Did I mention that dinner took 3.5 hours? Ok, so during my bathroom break, it was also really cool cause our waiter noticed that that's where I was headed, and he actually escorted me. At this point in the meal, I actually thought about it. With the quality of food and service, (and given that the service is included in the price) maybe this is more of a deal than people think. I mean, $210 is a big number, but I've been to a number of expensive dinners that have come close to that per head (given I've never actually paid) and really, the quality didn't come close to this meal. Anyway, something to think about.

I'm moving on, though. Ok, we were given a cheese course, served with its own bread selection, of course, but i didn't love it, cause it was a soft cheese. I ended up trading Juliet for her cheese, but hers was semi-soft, too, and I'm much more of a hard cheese fan.

Next was our sorbet (palate cleanser) course. I had a grapefruit sorbet, while the rest of the table had an amazing guava sorbet. I wish I'd had that. It was so intensely flavored and simple, yet delicious.

And we ended (almost) with our dessert course. I got a deconstructed smores while Juliet and Tom got a deconstructed snickers. Sue min didn't want either, so they made her some tropical dessert, which she liked a lot. Now I'm not a big fan of deconstructed desserts. I liked my smores cause the homemade marshmallows were excellent, but I wouldn't have minded something a little more traditional. After dessert, it was time for petit fours. First, we were present with a selection of chocolates made in house. We were allowed to have as many as we wanted. I had 2 while everyone else got 3. They were pretty well made. The quality of the chocolate wasn't top notch, I would've preferred something with more depth, but considering it was made in a restaurant kitchen, it was great. We were then given a little candy dish caddy thing with caramels, nougats and homemade truffles. I stole all the caramels, I have them hidden away somewhere, and haven't even eaten one. And we were given a bowl of chocolate covered almonds, that were delicious. I ate a ton of those. And finally, finally, they gave us each a little tower of macaroons to take home with us... The macaroons were ok, certainly not as good as the ones we'd gotten in Paris, but it was a nice touch. When you threw in the tax, the entire bill ended up being $240/person. (Juliet paid a little extra for her $17 martini)

All in all, it was an amazing meal. Not something I'll be doing again any time soon, but certainly a wonderful once in a lifetime experience. I can't wait for dinner at the French Laundry, one day.

THE DEL POST-O

Ok ok, cheesy title. But I had to do it. Well, you guys are all gonna hate me, cause despite having some great meals in New York this past weekend, I barely took any pics. But I don't think it's fair to blame me. You gotta blame the restaurants with their low lighting, which made it impossible for me to take any decent pics without flash. (And no, I wasn't gonna be firing away with the flash during the meal).

As you all know, I was planning on making up our disappointing dining in Paris with some excellent dining in NY. So on Friday night, we drove down. I wanted to eat at Enoteca, which is a little lounge area within Mario Batali's Del Posto Restaurant. It's right off the bar and separate from the main restaurant, and you can get smaller dishes for much less than a normal dinner at Del Posto. Of course, you still get amazing service and great food since, the staff and the kitchen are still the same. The thing with Enoteca is that they only take reservations starting at 10am the day of. So of course, I was on my cell phone at 10am. Luckily, it only took 2 calls to get through, and I was only on hold for 10 minutes. I made a reservation for 3 at 8:30.

We ended up in NY much earlier than we had planned. We didn't run into much traffic, which was a good thing, especially on a Friday night. So I called Enoteca, and tried to move up our reservation, but they were full. No problem. We ended up grabbing a quick snack and showed up for our reservation on time. Now, Del Posto is one of those mega restaurants located in Chelsea on 10th Ave. (right across the street from Morimoto). It's a huge, elegant restaurant, with a large double stair case in back, all marble and dark wood.

We were quickly shown to our table. Del Posto has this great deal when you get four courses for $41. You get to pick from the entire menu, and you get your choice of one appetizer, a primi, a secondi and a dessert. The whole table needs to participate, but we had no problem with that. Juliet, who also went with us, got a wine pairing for an additional $19. After we ordered, we got a lovely basket of homemade breads, served with butter and a side of whipped lardo (aka smoked pork fat, if you've ever watched Molto Mario, Mario Batali loves to use this stuff).

For my first course, I got the autumn vegetables with saba. This wasn't the most creative thing on the menu, but it was executed really well, and the best part was some type of lettuce veggie thingy that they used. Kinda like arugula, but I'm not sure what it was. It made the entire dish totally yummy. Tom got the octopus, which he liked a lot. It was very well prepared and tender, while Juliet ordered the Carpaccio. I think she was expecting something else, she was pretty surprised when the thinly pounded raw beef showed up, but she did eat most of it and found it very "beefy".

For the primi, I didn't have many choices since almost everything had beef or pork, so I got a well prepared penne with marinara. Nothing super exciting, but the pasta for all three of our dishes were perfectly cooked. Tom got the gnocchi, which he though was excellent and pillowy. Juliet got the orchiette, which I think she also enjoyed.

My secondi was my very favorite part of the meal, and perhaps the best thing I ate the entire weekend. It was turkey osso bucco. Now osso bucco is normally made with beef, but I had read reviews of the amazing turkey osso bucco and I was not disappointed. The meat just fell off the bone and was completely soft and tender. Also, it was served on something similar to polenta, though that wasn't quite what it was, but it just smelled of butter and was the most delicious thing you could imagine. Juliet said it tasted just like normal osso bucco. I loved it, but at this point, I'd gotten so full that I couldn't finish it all. Meanwhile, Juliet ordered more beef, which she didn't particularly like. She said it lacked flavor. Finally, Tom order the fried shrimp and artichoke alla Giudia. This is an authentic Roman dish, started in the Jewish ghettos of Rome. He found it a bit too salty, but I found the shrimp to be perfectly fried, and not overcooked at all.

To finish our meal, I had the trio of gelatos. I wasn't overly impressed with them. My favorite one was probably the caramel, but I think they could've been more intensely flavored. Tom ordered the sweet potato cake, which I found kinda odd and Juliet ordered the rum cake, which I didn't try (I'm not a fan of rum), but she enjoyed it a lot. The wine pairings that Juliet got were also very good, and an excellent deal at $19. I thought service was really great, too. It really made me miss how wonderful service really can be in NY. It does truly make a difference, the pacing of the meal, bringing out dishes all at once, just really small things. One thing I was impressed with was when our waitress began to pour Juliet one of her wines, and she ran out. So she went to get another bottle of wine. Now proper protocol is that you pour the new wine into a new glass, and not just add it into the previous glass, and the waitress did just that, also allowing Juliet to sample the bottle after she'd opened it. Yes, I know I'm picky, but for me, it really is all those small things that make the difference.

Overall, I thought our meal was excellent. So if you're in NY, you need to take advantage of this amazing deal. You'd be hard pressed to find something nearing the quality, service and price anywhere. So go now! Before they wise up and raise the prices. A wonderful meal to start off a yummy weekend of eating.

IS IT ALLSTON OR BRIGHTON?

This is for Sue Min, cause she meebo-ed me and pointed out that I hadn't blogged today.

Really, can someone explain to me where Brighton ends and Allston begins? Or vice versa? I never really know if I'm in Allston or Brighton, unless I'm in Brighton Center, which is self explanatory. And it's not like Allston/Brighton are different towns like Brookline. It's still all part of Boston. So confusing, but that's Boston for ya. At any rate, I digress. Last week, Tom and wanted to grab a quick lunch before seeing Flushed Away. So I suggested we try out May's Cafe, somewhere in Allston/Brighton. I read that this was a Taiwanese place, so I wanted to check it out and compare it to the other places I've been. Plus I wanted noodle soup.

So off we went. We were lucky to find some parking near the intersection of Harvard and Comm Ave. and we walked the rest of the way, just a few blocks, to the restaurant. It kinda appeared out of nowhere, since it's set on a very residential street. But I was happy to find it filled with a couple of tables of Asians when we arrived. It's a small, narrow restaurant, with not more than 8 tables, and it's very sparsely decorated.

So after looking at then menu, we decided to order a few appetizers and noodles. I ordered some cold tofu and seaweed. I found it very yummy, especially the tofu. Tom ordered the scallion pancake. It was pretty good. Not too greasy. But it was hard for me to tell if it was store bought or home made. Tom liked it more than I did. I still prefer the ones at Shangri-la. But i did like the dipping sauce. Here are my noodles. I got the fried chicken noodle soup, something I eat often at Taiwanese restaurants, if you go back and search my posts. In this case, I thought the noodles and soup were really tasty, but the chicken lacked flavor. It could've used some salt or marinade or something. It wasn't as flavorful as the chicken that I've had at Wisteria house, but I was also happy that when you bit into it, you didn't feel all the oil and MSG coating your tongue like the chicken at Wisteria. And here's Tom's "famous" pan fried noodles with chicken, cabbage and mushroom. I also found Tom's dish pretty tasty, but he felt there were too many noodles, and not enough of the other stuff.Over all, May's Cafe was very reasonably priced and the food was quite tasty. If was located on St. Mary's, I'd totally go more often, like when I go to Sushi Express or Han River. But for me, if I'm gonna drive somewhere to get Taiwanese food, I'd rather have it at Mulan in Cambridge or at Shangri La in Belmont.

PARIS: DAY 4, THE LAST DAY

Well, it was our last day in Paris. But our flight wasn't taking off until the early evening, which meant that we had time to continue exploring the city and also visiting a few more chocolate shops. Oh, also, as promised, here's the tabblo with pics of all the chocolate shops we visited. Please look at it; it took me 2 hours!

Hands down, my favorite chocolate shop in Paris is now Michel Chaudun. I bought a box of his chocolates and almost finished off the entire box by myself the day after I got back. Sigh. So yummy. When good chocolates around, I just can't stop myself from eating them all up! And I liked the fact that he was actually at his shop.

Tom and I spent most of the morning walking up and down the Champs Elysee. So here's a hilarious thing that I spotted while we were walking. Look closely. Just think, this is mounted on a wall outside the Swatch store on the Champs Elysee. Excellent. After walking for a while, we needed a break. So off we went to Angelina, that famous Parisian hot chocolate shop. I have a soft spot for Angelina's since it was the first place where I ever had real hot chocolate. When I was a college student we went right after visiting the Louvre (after having spent 3 hours in the rain waiting to get into the damn place). So we were cold and wet and I never really noticed the surroundings. On my second trip there, I noticed how over the top and gilded this place is. We arrive fairly early, so Tom ordered a brioche and coffee while I got a hot chocolate. Here it is:I gotta admit, the hot chocolate that I'd had at L'Charlotte d'Isle was much better than the stuff at Angelina's. But I liked the fact that Angelina's served their chocolate with a pot of fresh whipped cream on the side. It was sweeter and not as dense as the stuff at L'Charlotte, but it was still good.

After walking a bit more, we were ready for lunch. I had written down a place in the 9th that was known for good tartines (open face sandwiches), but it was closed when we arrived. Maybe they only serve dinner? At any rate, there was a cute like creperie on the same street, so we went there instead. We decided to sit outside, even though it was a cool day, cause it was on a cute little street and it's fun to people watch. I decided to get the 15E set menu while Tom just ordered a crepe. Here's my crepe, you can see it was served with a little pat of butter on top.And here it is cut open. I wanted to show you how orange the egg yolk was. Now that's fresh!After the crepe, I was supposed to get a green salad and a dessert crepe. But we waited and waited, and it was starting to get really cold and sprinkle a bit. So we gave up. (Right as Tom went in to pay, the dessert crepe was coming out, but what happened to the salad?) We turned it down and headed back to the hostel to check out and head to the airport. Wait, right after we went to this nice patisserie near the place we had lunch. I wish we'd had lunch there. It was warm inside.

In closing, I wouldn't say I had the best food in Paris on this trip. I guess we just really didn't have the time, and missed out on a lot of places for weird reasons (well, it is Paris after all). So maybe on the next trip. I'm making it up on my trip to NY this weekend. I was very happy with my chocolate purchases, though, and continue to make my way through those. In closing, here's a pic I took in the 9th. If you're unfamiliar with these, it's by a French artist who goes around putting these space invader mosaics up in different places. I'm sure there's a website or blog out there that tracks them. I've seen them in LA, too. And I know there are ones in NY. Neat, huh?